THE GOSPEL AND THE ISSUES OF LIFE (1 OF 5)
Scripture: Philemon 1, Philemon 2, Philemon 3
This content is part of a series.
The Gospel and the Issues of Life (1 of 5)
Series: A Most Subversive Gospel
Wyman Richardson
Philemon 1-3
Read Philemon 1-3
In 1642, Blaise Pascal, at the age of nineteen, started working on building a mechanical calculator, primarily in order to help his father with his business as a tax commissioner. The calculator came to be known as ''the pascaline.'' This invention was significant for a number of reasons, as Wikipedia explains:
Besides being the first calculating machine made public during its time, the pascaline is also:
- the only operational mechanical calculator in the 17th century.
- the first calculator to have a controlled carry mechanism that allowed for an effective propagation of multiple carries
- the first calculator to be used in an office (his father's to compute taxes)
- the first calculator commercialized (with around twenty machines built)
- the first calculator to be patented (royal privilege of 1649)
- the first calculator to be described in an encyclopedia (Diderot and d'Alembert, 1751)
- the first calculator sold by a distributor
Jean-Claude Carriere has told the story of how a man he knows discovered one of Pascal's calculators.
I also knew a superb bookseller in the rue de l'Universite,' who specialized in scientific books and objects...He lived on the rue du Bac, on the other side of boulevard Saint-Germain. One night he was walking home up the rue de Bac. He crossed the boulevard and, as he was walking along, he noticed a small piece of brass poking out of a rubbish bin. He stopped, lifted the lid, went through the bin and pulled out one of the twelve calculators made by Pascal himself. Absolutely priceless. It now lives in the National Conservatory of Arts and Crafts, the CNAM. Who had thrown it out?
Absolutely amazing! That something so priceless and so revolutionary as this amazing invention could have been thrown out with the trash. The shock comes in the disjunction between the value of the object a ...
Series: A Most Subversive Gospel
Wyman Richardson
Philemon 1-3
Read Philemon 1-3
In 1642, Blaise Pascal, at the age of nineteen, started working on building a mechanical calculator, primarily in order to help his father with his business as a tax commissioner. The calculator came to be known as ''the pascaline.'' This invention was significant for a number of reasons, as Wikipedia explains:
Besides being the first calculating machine made public during its time, the pascaline is also:
- the only operational mechanical calculator in the 17th century.
- the first calculator to have a controlled carry mechanism that allowed for an effective propagation of multiple carries
- the first calculator to be used in an office (his father's to compute taxes)
- the first calculator commercialized (with around twenty machines built)
- the first calculator to be patented (royal privilege of 1649)
- the first calculator to be described in an encyclopedia (Diderot and d'Alembert, 1751)
- the first calculator sold by a distributor
Jean-Claude Carriere has told the story of how a man he knows discovered one of Pascal's calculators.
I also knew a superb bookseller in the rue de l'Universite,' who specialized in scientific books and objects...He lived on the rue du Bac, on the other side of boulevard Saint-Germain. One night he was walking home up the rue de Bac. He crossed the boulevard and, as he was walking along, he noticed a small piece of brass poking out of a rubbish bin. He stopped, lifted the lid, went through the bin and pulled out one of the twelve calculators made by Pascal himself. Absolutely priceless. It now lives in the National Conservatory of Arts and Crafts, the CNAM. Who had thrown it out?
Absolutely amazing! That something so priceless and so revolutionary as this amazing invention could have been thrown out with the trash. The shock comes in the disjunction between the value of the object a ...
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